Driving Force in the Outdoor Furniture Industry
How Nublue implemented a bespoke, auto-scaling AWS cluster to support Maze Living through unprecedented traffic surges.
Talk to an expertThe Brief
Managing Rapid Traffic Volatility
As Maze Living’s online presence grew, so did the complexity of their infrastructure requirements. The primary challenges included:
Unpredictable Traffic Spikes: Towards the end of the first UK COVID lockdown in 2020, traffic increased significantly, necessitating a more robust hosting solution.
Need for Scalability: The business required a partner to assist with migration to a hosted Magento environment that could establish a platform for long-term growth.
Performance Requirements: A need for high-speed response times to maintain customer satisfaction during peak shopping periods.
Technological Integration: The requirement to integrate the latest technologies to modernise their existing site.
The Solution
A Tailored, Clustered AWS Ecosystem
After a comprehensive discovery process to understand business requirements, budgets, and timeframes, Nublue proposed and implemented a bespoke, clustered setup built on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
1. Intelligent Traffic Routing & Auto-Scaling
We implemented an auto-scaling front-end solution using Nginx and Apache web servers, with traffic intelligently routed via load balancers. This allows the AWS hosting solution to respond dynamically to changes in visitor numbers by automatically adding front-end resources when required and reducing them during quieter periods.
2. High-Performance Caching
To ensure super-fast page loads, we utilised Varnish for high-speed caching, supported by additional caching handled via a separate Redis instance.
3. Optimised Component Separation
Instead of a traditional multi-purpose single server, we utilised a clustered approach to maximise performance. This included:
Resilience Amidst Exponential Growth
The transition to the Nublue platform has enabled Maze Living to navigate periods of extreme volatility with total stability.
Proven Scalability: During Easter 2020, the platform successfully sustained traffic peaks in excess of 5x the previous high.
Increased Engagement: Maze Living experienced a 4x increase in page views and sessions during the summer of 2020.
Seamless Performance: The move to distributed, optimised components and intelligent load balancing has provided a fast and responsive user experience despite significantly increased visitor numbers.
Operational Confidence: The managed infrastructure allows the business to focus on expansion, knowing additional resources will be utilised automatically as the business grows.
“The exponential growth of Maze Living during the pandemic meant big infrastructure changes were needed to continue to build on our success. As a high traffic e-commerce brand we knew we had to get the transition right. By partnering with Nublue we were able to access over a decade of Magento hosting experience, and the team partnered with our in-house Development team successfully transitioning our site onto our own platform with minimal issues. As our growth continues, we are confident the managed infrastructure and Magento hosting support we have with Nublue will continue to be a valuable part of our strategy.”